


Transcendental Youth

by redstapler



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Hugs, Pines Family Bonding, Post-Weirdmageddon, The Power Of Mabel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 11:33:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11207229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redstapler/pseuds/redstapler
Summary: Mabel can't sleep. Neither can Ford.They have a very important chat.





	Transcendental Youth

**Author's Note:**

> This is a coda to my fic, [Even Awful Dreams Are Good Dreams (If You're Doing It Right)"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10595346)
> 
> You can read this on its own. A couple sentences might be confusing, but there are no spoilers.

Mabel can’t sleep.  
  
She’s not sure if it’s too much sugar and caffeine from the birthday party, or just general jet lag from the time displacement after Weirdmageddon. Either way: she’s wide awake.  
  
For what feels like the first time the entire summer, Dipper’s the one dead to the world, and she’s the one who can’t seem to settle down. She finally gives it all up for a bad job and heads downstairs for some cocoa. Okay, maybe just some water. She thinks she may even have hit her sugar limit, wild as that sounds.  
  
The kitchen light is still on, and Great Uncle Ford is at the table, surrounded by books and scraps of paper. When she steps into the kitchen, she sees it’s his journals.  
  
“Uh, hey Grunkle Ford. Couldn’t sleep either, huh?”  
  
“Hello, Mabel. No, I think I have time displacement jet lag. I’ve gotten it before in my travels.”  
  
“I knew it!” Mabel feels a warmth of pride grow in her stomach. Dipper couldn’t have gotten _all_ the Science Twin genes.  
  
“I beg your pardon?”  
  
“Well, I figured it was something like that, or I just had too much caffeine earlier. That happens sometimes, too. I was going to have some water, would you like some?”  
  
“Thank you, that would be very kind of you. Please, sit!” Ford neatens the table and makes room for his grandniece. Mabel fills two cups with water and sits down.  
  
She immediately regrets it.  
  
The warmth she’d felt just moments ago disappeared as she realizes: This is the first time she and Ford have been alone in the same room since Weirdmageddon had ended. Guilt pricks at her insides, creeping up her throat and behind her eyes. She looks everywhere but at him and sips her water.  
  
Almost like he could read her thoughts, Ford opens his mouth to speak.  
  
“How are you feeling? Since well, you know. No major injuries? No nightmares?”  
  
The kitchen light overhead may as well have been a spotlight.  
  
“I’m okay as I can be, I guess. I think my and Dipper’s ribs are still a little bruised, but other than that it’s nothing worse than the rest of the summer.”  
  
“Ah, youth. I remember when I first moved here, I felt like I was invincible. There was many a time I wished I’d gone through the portal before I turned 30, I’ll tell you.” Ford eyes his grandniece and sips his water. There was a question she’d dodged. “And no nightmares?”  
  
Mabel stares into her cup.  
  
“Not...not really. Kinda like the bumps and bruises, there’s been enough nightmare fuel the whole summer. Weird dreams are just what I have now. Or maybe I always did? I don’t know. Grunkle Ford...did Dipper tell you anything about where I was?”  
  
“He said Bill had trapped you in a prison of great power, but he didn’t tell me specifics. Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
“No. But I know I should.” Guilt felt like it had taken over her entire being. She knew there was no way to tell him about the bubble without admitting how it had come to be. She takes a deep, shuddering breath, and then a sip of water. “Everything was my fault.” She eyed her Grunkle to gauge his reaction. He only looked sad.  
  
“No, Mabel. It was mine. If I’d been able to contain--”  
  
“The rift. That was the snow globe thing, right?” Ford nods. “I...I gave it to Bill. He got it from me. I started the whole thing.” Tears well up in her eyes, and she buries her face in her hands. She really, really wishes she’d put a sweater on over her night shirt before coming downstairs.  
  
Ford looks at her, unsure of what to do. Comforting crying teens isn't really in his wheelhouse. He does, however, have some experience with gnawing guilt and a surety that he'd brought about the end of the world.  
  
“Mabel, sweetie.” Ford tries the term of endearment out and finds it fits his affection for her. “The sheer number of events that had to transpire for that one moment to occur is infinite! I’m sure there’s a dozen timelines where I simply knocked the rift off my desk, causing Weirdmageddon. Any one of us could have done it. In this timeline, it just happened to be you.”  
  
For reasons Ford couldn’t quite discern, this only makes Mabel cry harder.  
  
“But--” sob “Grunkle Ford--” sob “I didn’t see his eyes--” sob “and he offered me--” Ford couldn’t make out the next phrase, “--and I just _handed_ it to him!”  
  
Ford goes to the sink and runs some paper towels under the tap. Wringing them out and coming back to the table, he sits in the chair next to Mabel rather than across from her. He hands her the damp towel and puts his hand on her shoulder.  
  
“So he possessed someone you knew and used that trust against you?”  
  
Mabel nods wetly.  
  
“And it was someone whose eyes you wouldn't have insisted upon seeing before trusting them?”  
  
Mabel nods again, wiping her nose with the towel.  
  
“Sweetheart, far savvier people have been tricked by Bill, using far simpler tricks. What happened to you could have happened to any of us. You just happened to be the one holding the bag. Literally.”  
  
Mabel sniffles again.  
  
“I know, but it took Dipper and Wendy and Soos coming to find me for me to even realize anything was wrong! Everyone was scared and hungry while I lived it up in my own private paradise!”  
  
Ford has no idea what she's talking about, or how to parse that.  
  
“I...don’t follow? Bill spoke very highly of the...place where he had you. I feared the worst.”  
  
“Oh, Grunkle Ford, it was wonderful! Until it wasn’t.”

“Yes, that does sound like Bill. Are you comfortable telling me more?”  
  
Mabel fidgets in her seat.  
  
“I’ll tell you some. A lot of it isn’t mine to tell.”  
  
Dipper, Wendy, and Soos were transparent about their heart's desires in that place, and to varying degrees. Mabel knew that back in reality, they wouldn't appreciate having those parts of themselves shared. She takes another sip of water, and another deep breath.  
  
“Bill gave me an entire world of all of my favorite things. Anything I could possibly need or want, I merely willed into existence.”  
  
“What happened when Dipper and the others joined you?”  
  
“At first it was great! I wanted to share it with them, but then it...it got bad. That includes the stuff that’s not really mine to tell. Everyone got their heart’s desires and it…” Remembering what she saw in Wendy’s mindscape, fresh tears come to her eyes. But then she also remembers how she solved that problem and feels a steely resolve. “Anyway, my heart’s desire became that we all got back here safe. So we did.”  
  
“And you got everyone back safe! Mabel, that’s tremendous! Do you have any idea what kind of power it takes to extricate oneself from Bill’s grasp?”  
  
“Come on, Grunkle Ford! It can’t be that hard! We did it like a bazillion times this summer!” Mabel ducks her head, not quite ready to take a compliment about this situation. It had still been her situation, after all. Hers. Her fault. Her…  
  
Ford sees the descent of emotions play across Mabel’s face and puts his arm around her shoulders, giving her a tight squeeze.  
  
“From everything I’ve seen, you are a strong, capable, creative thinker who’s gotten herself and her friends out of lots of tight spots. You’re a singular young woman, Mabel Pines, and I’m very proud of you.”  
  
Mabel stares at him, wide eyes full of tears.  
  
“R-really?”  
  
“Really. And I’m very, very glad Dipper is going home with you. Separating you two would have been a grievous mistake.”  
  
“Oh, Grunkle Ford!” Mabel throws herself at him, crying anew into his sweater. After a minute or so, she composes herself. “Well! I think I’m about all cried out for the night? I’m going to refill this water cup and take it with me back to bed. G’night, Grunkle Ford.”  
  
“I think that’s a fine idea." Ford resists the urge to ask if she would tell him more later about where she'd been. There would be time enough for that. "Sleep well, Mabel, and I hope you have easy dreams.”  
  
And you know what? She does.

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive my further abuse of the works of The Mountain Goats by using them for fic titles.
> 
> Beta'd by the ever-wonderful @equilibriumgirl.
> 
> Come scream with me on tumblr at: http://dontbearuiner.tumblr.com


End file.
